Fighting Legal Terrorism.

Do you know how vulnerable our life has become with the growing misuse of dowry laws in India? IPC 498A was enacted to deal with dowry harassment on women by her husband and in-laws. The law is defined as Non-bailable (you have to move to court to get bail, cannot get bail at police station), non-compoundable (once put against you, cannot be taken back at will) and cognizable (police can arrest without warrant and investigation). The above law being susceptible to misuse has become a weapon of some modern liberated women to torture their husband, in-laws and other women in the family. The Police will immediately arrest the accused including old ailing in-laws, pregnant women and young kids without adequate investigation. In most of the cases the accused get acquitted because the complaint was not based on factual evidence. Even after truthfully acquitted (which takes several years), the innocent husband and his family members have to bear intense criticism and contempt in the society. Such misuse of laws damages the family including women and in many cases they are pushed to commit suicide.

As a result, Police have become more skeptical due to the incidents of such misuse of laws on a very large scale especially in the urban areas of the country. It would have been fair if such laws act as a protection to women from such unlawful dowry demand. Unfortunately, the law has also been misused to get even or gain score or even to extort money from husband and in-laws. However, the law did not curb the dowry deaths in rural areas as expected but it is getting grossly misused in urban areas. There are still number of women with a genuine case that have been skeptically investigated because the law has been vastly misused and the Police would not want to arrest innocent people. Therefore, because of rampant misuse of this law, genuine cases are not taken seriously for which the police can’t be blamed since arresting innocent people is injustice.

Supreme Court has termed misuse of IPC 498A as Legal Terrorism and shows its inability to change the law is it is passed by the Lok Sabha. US State Department issued a travel advisory/warning regarding misuse of IPC-498A to NRIs who come to India to get married. In year 2003, World Health Organization (WHO) published a report on “Abuse of Elders” across the world. This report specified the legal abuse of elders including women in India where many daughters-in-law file false complaints of cruelty (IPC u/s 498A) against them. Countless daughters-in-law are demanding the in-laws to distance themselves from their sons and live on their own separately. To find out the rampant misuse of this law, search on the internet by the words like “misuse 498a”, “misuse dowry law”, “harassed husbands”, “elder abuse India”, “498a law” you will find the reality.